ThinkPad purportedly flames out at LAX

We know some passengers can get a little heated up waiting at the airport, but this is ridiculous. According to several online reports, accompanied by incriminating photos, a ThinkPad laptop burst into flames at LAX over the weekend, causing considerable panic. Originally reported on the popular somethingawful.com forums, an eyewitness posted this account:

"So we're waiting for a flight in the United lounge at LAX. The flight next to ours was heading to London and in the middle of final boarding when suddenly this guy comes running the wrong way up the jetway, pushing other boarding passengers out of the way, he quickly drops his laptop on the floor and the thing immediately flares up like a giant firework for about 15 seconds, then catches fire."

The story has since been picked up by tech bloggers from Engadget, Gizmodo, Gearlog and CNET Asia. Unlike Dell and Apple, there is no recall of ThinkPad batteries (also, some reports claim the system that flamed out was an older IBM model, not a newer Lenovo one), so we'll have to wait and see if this is an isolated case or a new problem.